


all these things that i've done

by inkoustem



Category: Football RPF
Genre: FC Barcelona, Gen, Liverpool F.C., POV Second Person, champions league final
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-17 05:44:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5856385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkoustem/pseuds/inkoustem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you need to take a step backward to go two steps forward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all these things that i've done

1.

You turn over a page and before you know it, ten months, three weeks, and five days have gone by. Ever since, the air you breathe in is full of promises—no, it’s better—it’s full of _certainty_ , and every day you bask in the sun of the city where everything the light touches turns to gold.

It’s not a path to redemption, it’s not why you’re there for, yet with every step you take you can’t help but to feel brand new, to feel liberated. When your feet touch the ground you promise yourself not to look back. Grainy memories are but what you plan to build your new legacy upon, and now, you walk out the tunnel, here you are, you walk onto the pitch, you are where you’ve always aimed to be.

 

2.

You’ve got Andrés on your right and Jordi on your left. As you stand in alignment with the group of men that the world claims to be the best there is you stop for a moment and think, _I deserve to be here._

You know of your potential. You know of your quality. Your endurance goes back to the harsh days on the street of Salto, and you’ve come a long way from running headfirst into scenes, blindly and recklessly.

It’s one of the memories that you don’t allow to fade into grey—of a man who was once a dream then turned into a reality and a focal point, an arm around your shoulder, the white heat of his armband seeping through the fabric of your jersey and onto your skin, firm and _believing_ , the crinkles around his eyes every time you saw him and he saw you, and your languages didn’t sound much different when you are communicating in laughter—since then you’ve grown, and now your erratic desire comes with a direction.

It’s not arrogance. You know of your hard work. You know of your worth. This is where the direction leads you to. To be in the middle of nebulae clusters and the armband digging to your right side is red and yellow.

So you stand straight and go about to prove it in the way you know best.

 

3.

It’s arguably the show of the highest calibre—the _final_ of the _Champions League_ —and you are a part of it, fighting for _Barcelona_.

At the very core of it though, it’s just another football match—it needs to be _given_ a meaning, for a story of eleven men chasing a ball into a net to mean anything at all.

Football, for the lack of better words, means everything to you—it means your family, your pride, your very essence. But still you acknowledge that, for this is what you go through, week in, week out. It keeps you grounded, it keeps you stable, it keeps you undeterred even when you lose your valuable lead and the stadium roars in exuberance.

You keep your focus on your heart beat. You keep going ( _you walk on, walk on_ ), one feet in front of the other. This is what you’re here for. The foundation has been laid and all you need to do is build. And you are about to go easy on yourself, to allow yourself the time, because even the brightest of star struggles to shine in the company of supernova, but then—

 

4.

The ball rebounds and it falls nicely onto your path and the net is open and inviting. All you need to do is get to it and help it politely into the net. But in that split second, you think it won’t be enough, in that split second, you charge on and you channel all your hunger and meaning into your right foot and you mercilessly _force_ the ball into the net and—

 

5.

It sets off a chain of explosions—from you, to your teammates, to the seventy thousand people congregating around you, to whatever number it is extended across the world. The leftover momentum takes over your being and the motions become seemingly perpetual—you keep running, and you kiss your wrist and your three fingers, and your arms are wide open in triumph and pride—in the midst of it all, your scream is muted and your vision is red.

 

6.

It’s not until you are engulfed in the wave of sweats and celebration that you realise your vision is also blue in equal part.

 

7.

Everything is a blur after the shrill melody of the final whistle fills the air.

You drink it all up—the vibrancy, the glory, the complete narration of you can so you will so you _do_ —it tastes of illumination and exhilaration, so you let yourself to be drowned in ecstasy and you put on silly headbands and commemorative t-shirt and you laugh and it’s genuine.

The cliché reaction would be to think that nothing could possibly be better than right here right now. You don’t think that, because you know—even before Leo and Neymar make their way towards you with matching grin bigger than the Ears on their hand—that ten months, three weeks, and five days are short compared to what follows and the air is never short of certainty. The kingdom comes and it comes to stay.

To be on the top and know full well this is still the beginning you think, _holy shit._

 

8.

The trophy is a bit bigger than you expect it to be, yet it feels weightless when you raise it above your head. You keep it right on your sight and you raise it high up in the air ( _and you see on the background that the sky is golden_ ).

Surrounding you is the loudness of red and blue and yellow but when you blink only red stays on the back of your eyelids, not that you do it often, because a victory of this magnitude calls for wide eyes of both joy and disbelief. The loud cheer of seventy thousand people, you let it wash over you, the jubilantly messy choir of _Cant del Barça_ , and you join in the shout and you laugh some more. In the clouds of euphoria you hear ghostly echoes of further forty five thousand people singing in unison—that catchy tune, that familiar tune, that tune you love so well.

You bring the trophy down to your level and immediately you search for a year, you search for a name. It is cold under your smile and it makes you feel alive.

 

9.

When it all starts to die down, you take a look down on the colours you are wearing. It’s a bit comical, really, to think that once you were brought down to your knees by a similar colour scheme—yet, here you are now, a newly crowned king whose reign is unmitigated with no sliver of confliction in sight.

It’s justified, you think, for the colours you are wearing are more subdued and regal—it is more than just red and blue, it is _blaugrana_. It’s completely different to the cheap knock-off that cruelly tore away the narration of _we can so we will so it’s about time that we actually do_. That was brassy and blinding and though the colours were blurred the mockery remained clear through your tears.

Then, of course, your thoughts take you back again to him. Everything always goes back to him. To the one man who picked you up that fiendish day, who had picked you up before and kept you by his side, feeding you with cultivating words of _you are brilliant, Luis, goddamn you’re the most brilliant I’ve known in me life, we’re in the middle of a brilliant story here lad,_ and you believed—you believe him and you believe in yourself.

And with him comes the legacy that was once in your hand. You think about how legacies aren’t built in ten months, three weeks, and five days, let alone in one night. But you remember the cool engraving under your lips a while ago. You remember the ghostly echoes on the back of your mind and the sound amplifies—you remember him, you remember them, who gave you reason, gave you belief, gave you direction, direction that leads to right _here,_ right _now_ , a winning scorer and a champion of everything one could ever hope for.

It’s not looking back. It’s an acknowledgement. It’s your land of grace and solid rock.

You look at the name tattooed permanently on the skin of your wrist and how you always kiss it without thinking in celebration. A name full of motivation, of affection, and—in lovely turn of events—of serendipity.

This time you trace it from right to left— _a – n – i – f – l_ —and you kiss your wrist for the second time that night. The letters rearrange themselves in your head, but your gratitude remains concrete, your love remains unchanged.

 

 

_“If I was to return to England, it would be to play for Liverpool—not for any other team.” –[Luis Suárez](http://www.thisisanfield.com/2016/01/luis-suarez-if-i-returned-to-england-i-would-only-play-for-liverpool/)_

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. title belongs to The Killers.  
> 2\. your fun fact of the day: Delfina is an anagram of Anfield.  
> 3\. i know, okay, i _know_ , but i'm a liverpool fan if i've got nothing if i haven't got a dream and too much feelings.  
> 4\. thank you, thank you, _thank you_ so much for reading and i really hope i did it justice. please don't hesitate to comment on anything at all even criticism is love in my book! thank you so so much again!


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